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The planet called “TOI 700 d” is relatively close to Earth, just 100 light-years away, experts from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said at the annual meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Honolulu, Hawaii.
Initially, the transiting exoplanet prospecting satellite (TESS) misclassified the star, meaning that the planets orbiting it seemed larger and hotter than they actually were. But several amateur astronomers, including a high school student, who works with members of the TESS team, have identified the error. “After correcting the parameters of the star, the size of the planets was reduced and we realized that it was approximately the size of Earth and that it was in the potentially habitable area.said Emily Gilbert, a student at the University of Chicago. The discovery was later confirmed using the Spitzer Space Telescope.
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Several other similar planets have been discovered, especially with the help of the Kepler Space Telescope, but this is TESS’s first discovery, which was launched in 2018. TESS stabilizes in an area of the sky to detect if objects – planets – pass the face of the stars, causing a temporary decrease in the brightness of the stars. This allows TESS to deduce the presence of a planet, its size and orbit.
The TOI 700 star is small, about 40% that of the Sun and twice as cold. Researchers have not yet determined what the planet TOI d is made of or what its atmospheric composition and surface temperature are.
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